**Machine # 1** hosts a p2p chat room in [Winmx primary connection] and within that link is connected to 4 or 5 other chatrooms as well as doing searching on a browser]**Machine # 2** does searching on browser and is commonly[but not always] connected to uTorrent program.

**Problem**- When these machines are connected to internet thru asus router, machine # 1 continually loses connections to chatrooms and at times the hosted chatroom, but is always able to browse internet. All ports necessary are forwarded in router. The router firewall is on but the opensuse firewall is off. **[connection drop measured in minutes]**

I have tried the original asus firmware and also, Oleg's firmware, but the results are the same. Could this be a shared bandwidth problem? Could anyone suggest how to stabilize this problem?Or where to start looking to correct this problem.

I,m not sure if this is of any interest but when I have used utorrent and with WinMx rolling primary I too have lost connectivity so I have the notion your hardware is ok but your suffering from a swamped router, some popular torrents make so many concurrent connections its more a case of when rather than if something else is going to suffer

The device nearest the internet should be set to 'Bridge' or 'pass-through' mode. It listens to the IP address provided by your ISP, so if you have a regular dynamic IP, that modem should be set accordingly. It will have its own 'gateway' IP number, say 192.168.1.1 and in its settings tell it to send all data to device at say 192.168.1.5 and before placing it into bridge mode, load in all the settings your actual ISP has given.

The device further from the internet will be told to listen at 192.168.1.5 as it's 'ISP Address', in its settings, it has a Static IP connection, and then output the data to the computers. Helpful too, if it is doing this using a different IP address range, like the 10.0.0.x range in the example above. This second device may also want some of the ISP provided settings info too

If bridging is not done properly, it can cause HELL

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Have gone further to check devices:Modem {TP-Link TD-8616} As per modem's website, it is just a modem, but does have settable properties accessible thru 192.168.1.1 webpage. (not that I would know what to do with them) You say it should be set to bridge mode-[see attachment 1] -is this what you mean? I can only access this webpage if the Asus router is not connected.Router{Asus RT-N16],has tomatousb 1.28 firmware and is where I do all my portforwarding and recording of my static ip's [internal]and it also has 192.168.1.1 as it's webpage address.When they are both[modem & router] connected the 192.168.1.1 takes me to the Asus router page.

I am not sure if doublerouterportforwarding aplies here, can you say with the info I have provided?

@GhostShipYes I have heard a bit about that and experienced it when both are running.However, this disconnecting of chatrooms also happens when I am not running any torrent program, when router has been rebooted and when only winmx machine is running. Here I should maybe clarify that "Winmx machine" is the one that has openSuse 12.1 running winmx thru wine and using wcs 1.8.3.1 linux version

The first device, (TD-8817) is in bridge mode, has interface info as needed to talk to the ISP's server, else it does nothing except convert the internet ADSL signal to Ethernet signal

the second device (TL-WR340G) thinks it is listening to an internet signal on 192.168.1.100, and acts as little more than intelligent switch with WiFi ability, to deal out connect info. It needs no ISP settings because its input is already at Ethernet Protocol standard

So the first device is converting the internet to ethernet, but doing no destination routing (hence 'bridge mode') except to the second device. All computers are connected by ethernet or wireless to the second device

Most Routers can be reprogrammed to use a different IP range, so it would be good if you can change either one of your devices, either the modem (first device) to use 192.168.0.1 or 10.0.0.1 as it's Gateway IP and then the second device (router) would be set to listen to whichever of those addresses you chose. It then performs the Network Address Translation (NAT) to the 192.168.1.XXX range that your LAN is using

If the Modem device cannot be changed, then possibly the router (second device) can be similarly altered

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@silicon_toad2000 - no I am not using wireless. All PC's to router wired by cat5

@Bluey_412 - In the user manual for TD-8616 [modem], it says the IP for LAN may be changed. [current - 192.168.1.1]I don't have the Asus RT-N16 hooked up ATM, so I am not sure if it can be changed. Ideally does it matter which one is changed?Is this what may be causing my problem?

The TP-Link is my own modem, the one my ISP provides is a Motorola 2210-02-10NA.[just info]I notice, also, when PC is connected only to modem, nobody can download from me, altho the chatrooms I am joined to have been connected for over 24 hrs, now, with no dropping.The fact that no one can upload from me - is that where port forwarding comes in?

Should I go ahead and change the modem ip to 192.168.0.1 and the reconnect the router and set it up?thank you

@Bluey_412I have gone ahead and changed my TP-Link TD-8616 Modem to be 192.168.0.1 [from 192.168.1.1] and am now trying to setup modem and router as per your example.Not being an expert in anyway, I am a little unsure of where certain numbers have to be entered, so, laying it out as you have done, it looks like this:

@Bluey_412I have gone ahead and changed my TP-Link TD-8616 Modem to be 192.168.0.1 [from 192.168.1.1] and am now trying to setup modem and router as per your example.Not being an expert in anyway, I am a little unsure of where certain numbers have to be entered, so, laying it out as you have done, it looks like this:

I get all the numbers, except this one 192.168.0.100Where does it get placed : in modem or in router

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the second device (router) would be set to listen to whichever of those addresses you chose

Where in router do I place this number and is it 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.0.100

Your explanation is good I am just a little unsure how to go about setting this up, not having that much experience with all of this.Thanks for taking the time.

the router that is second device will want the 192.168.0.100 number set in the 'ISP IP Address' (or similar description) field.

Every router is looking for a server of some sort, that gives out IP addresses.

In the case of a dual device setup like these, the first device (Modem) is acting as a Server to the second device (Router)

So your actual ISP's server gives an address to the modem, which translates (NAT) that address into the LAN's address, with a Gateway address usually ending in 1, and then acts as a server to allocate an address to the router, in this case, the number ending in 100.

the router then acts as a server (with it's own gateway, ending in 1), doling out addresses to individual computers

Note too, that the 'Little LAN' between the modem and the router should be using a different IP range compared to the main LAN, example, the modem could be outputting to 192.168.1.XXX and the Router is outputting to 192.168.0.XXX. The router does a NAT function too

Yes, Port Forwarding does affect uploads

the essence of PF is that the router is told that your MX computer has a fixed IP address of (In the example given) of 192.168.1.X (X can be any number from 2 thru 255), and that traffic to that PC will go to port 6699 for TCP and 6257 for UDP protocols, in your actual PC, you set it to use that specific IP number, not 'Automatic IP'

I have kept that breif because it really is another area, and i do wanna try to make a good explanation that is way clearer than mud

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@GhostShipre: torrent issue - in part this is the problem but not the whole of it. When I have torrents runing on same machine with no router attached, I do get rooms dropping but not all and not so quickly, as when router is attached.

@Bluey_412I have presently set router up in the manner you have described, but I am not able to get on internet. Will have to go over setup again to make sure I have not done something wrong.Would you have any advice on which router firmware would be best? I have used tomatousb, but am back using the asus firmware at present. I am going to check the portforward forums out as well.Thanks so much for your help.

Just an update.I have been online with winmx for 2 days now and have been able to stay in rooms, without dropping out.

I have my modem and router setup as per Bluey_412's advice and it seems to be working a lot better. I am not sure if the setup is exactly as Bluey_412 describes, but it is as close as I can understand it to be.Keeping my fingers crossed that this ends my maintaining connection problems for the time being.